Schismatics are therefore rebels, whose lives are forfeit under the laws of treason. Heretics are in no better case; for the Church is the only infallible interpreter both of Scripture and of tradition; and to differ from her teaching is as disloyal as to secede from her jurisdiction. Even Augustine could say, 'I should not believe the Gospel, if the authority of the Church did not determine me to do so'; a statement which a modern ultra-montane has capped by saying, 'Without the authority of the Pope, I should not place the Bible higher than the Koran.' Bellarmine claims an absolute monopoly of inspiration for the Roman Church on the ground that Rome alone has preserved the apostolic succession beyond dispute.[52] As for the treatment which heretics deserve, the same authority is very explicit.
'In the first place, heretics do more mischief than any pirate or brigand, because they slay souls; nay more, they subvert the foundations of all good and fill the commonwealth with the disturbances which necessarily follow religious differences. In the second place, capital punishment inflicted on them has a good effect on very many persons. Many whom impunity was making indifferent are roused by these executions to consider what is the nature of the heresy which attracts them, and to take care not to end their earthly lives in misery and lose their future happiness. Thirdly, it is a kindness to obstinate heretics to remove them from this life. For the longer they live, the more errors they devise, the more men they pervert, and the greater damnation they acquire for themselves.'[53]
In all matters which are not essential for the safety of the autocracy, an absolutist Church will consult the average tastes of its subjects. If the populace are at heart pagan, and hanker after sensuous ritual, dramatic magic, and a rich mythology, these must be provided. The 'intellectuals,' being few and weak, may be safely rebuffed or disregarded until their discoveries are thoroughly popularised. The pronouncements of the Roman Inquisition in the case of Galileo are typical.
'The theory that the sun is in the centre of the world, and stationary, is absurd, false in philosophy, and formally heretical, because it is contrary to the express language of Holy Scripture. The theory that the earth is not the centre of the world, nor stationary, but that it moves with a daily motion, is also absurd and false in philosophy, and, theologically considered, it is, to say the least, erroneous in faith.'
The exigencies of despotic government thus supply the key to the whole policy and history of the Papacy. 'The worst form of State' can only be bolstered up by the worst form of government. There should therefore be no difficulty in distinguishing between the official policy of the Roman See—which has been almost uniformly odious—and the history of the Christian religion in the Latin countries, which has added new lustre to human nature. The Catholic saints did not fly through the air, nor were their hearts pierced with supernatural darts, as the mendacious hagiology of their Church would have us believe; but they have a better title to be remembered by mankind, as the best examples of a beautiful and precious kind of human excellence.
The papal autocracy has now reached its Byzantine period of decadence. During the Middle Ages Catholicism suited the Latin races very well on the whole. Their ancestral paganism was allowed to remain substantially unchanged—the nomina, but not the numina were altered; their awe and reverence for the caput orbis, ingrained in the populations of Europe by the history of a thousand years, made submission to Rome natural and easy; a host of myths 'abounding in points of attachment to human experience and in genial interpretations of life, yet lifted beyond visible nature and filling a reported world believed in on faith,'[54] adorned religion with an artistic and poetical embroidery very congenial to the nations of the South. But a monarchy essentially Oriental in its constitution is unsuited to modern Europe. Its whole scheme is based on keeping the laity in contented ignorance and subservience; and the laity have emancipated themselves The Teutonic nations broke the yoke as soon as they attained a national self-consciousness. They escaped from a system which had educated, but never suited them. Nor has the shrinkage been merely territorial. The Pyrrhic victories over Gallicanism, Jansenism, Catholic democracy (Lamennais), historical theology (Döllinger and the Old Catholics), each alienated a section of thinking men in the Catholic countries. The Roman Church can no longer be called Catholic, except in the sense in which the kingdom of Francis II remained the Holy Roman Empire. It is an exclusive sect, which preserves much more political power than its numbers entitle it to exert, by means of its excellent discipline, and by the sinister policy of fomenting political disaffection. Examples of this last are furnished by the contemporary history of Ireland, of France, and of Poland.
These considerations are of primary importance when we try to answer the questions: To what extent is the Roman Church fettered by her own past? Is there any insuperable obstacle to a modification of policy which might give her a new lease of life? We have seen how much importance is attached to the Church's title-deeds. Is tradition a fatal obstacle to reform? Theoretically, the tradition which she traces back to the apostles gives her a fixed constitution. So the Catholic Church has always maintained. 'Regula quidem fidei una omnino est, sola immobilis et irreformabilis.'[55] The rule of faith may be better understood by a later age than an earlier, but there can be no additions, only a sort of unpacking of a treasure which was given whole and entire in the first century. In reality, of course, there has been a steady evolution in conformity to type, the type being not the 'little flock' of Christ or the Church of the Apostles, but the absolute monarchy above described. It has long been the crux of Catholic apologetics to reconcile the theoretical immobility of dogma with the actual facts.
The older method was to rewrite history. It was convenient, for example, to forget that Pope Honorius I had been anathematised by three ecumenical councils. The forged Decretals gave a more positive sanction to absolutist claims; and interpolations in the Greek Fathers deceived St. Thomas Aquinas into giving his powerful authority to infallibilism. This method cannot be called obsolete, for the present Pope recently informed the faithful that 'the Hebrew patriarchs were familiar with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and found consolation in the thought of Mary in the solemn moments of their life.'[56] But such simple devices are hardly practicable in an age when history is scientifically studied. Moreover, other considerations, besides controversial straits, have suggested a new theory of tradition. A Cæsar who, like the kings of the Medes and Persians, is bound by the laws of his predecessors, is not absolute. Acceptance of the theory of development in dogma would relieve the Pope from the weight of the dead hand.
The new apologetic is generally said to have been inaugurated by Cardinal Newman. His work 'The Development of Christian Doctrine,' is no doubt an epoch-making book, though the idea of tradition as the product of the living spirit of a religious society, preserving its moral identity while expressing itself, from time to time, in new forms, was already familiar to readers of Schleiermacher. Newman gives us several 'tests' of true development. These are—preservation of type; continuity of principles; power of assimilation; logical sequence; anticipation of results; tendency to conserve the old; chronic vigour. These tests, he considered, differentiate the Roman Church from all other Christian bodies, and prove its superiority. The Church has its own genius, which yes and works in it. This is indeed the Holy Spirit of God, promised by Jesus Christ. Through the operation of this spirit, old things become new, and fresh light is shed from the sacred pages of Scripture. Catholic tradition is, in fact, the glorified but ever-present Christ Himself, reincarnating Himself, generation after generation, in the historical Church. It is unnecessary to enquire whether there is apostolic authority for every new dogma, for the Church is the mouthpiece of the living Christ.
This theory marks, on one side, the complete and final apotheosis of the Pope and the hierarchy, who are thereby made independent even of the past history of the Church. Pius IX was not slow to realise that the only court of appeal against his decisions was closed in 1870. 'La tradizione sono io,' he said, in the manner of Louis XIV. The Pope is henceforth not the interpreter of a closed cycle of tradition, but the pilot who guides its course always in the direction of the truth. This is to destroy the old doctrine of tradition. The Church becomes the source of revelation instead of its custodian. On the other side, it is a perilous concession to modern ideas. There is an obvious danger that, as the result of this doctrine, the dogmas of the Church may seem to have only a relative and provisional truth; for, if each pronouncement were absolutely true, there would be no real development, and the appearance of it in history would become inexplicable.